


I Knew You

by iridescentphantasmagoria



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, I like mercy but reaper really doesnt, I'm not actually sure how graphic this is, I'm so sorry, M/M, Unreliable Narrator, dad jokes, perma-annoyed reaper, reaper is probably a psychopath, snarky soldier: 76
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-02
Updated: 2016-09-04
Packaged: 2018-07-28 23:46:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7661872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iridescentphantasmagoria/pseuds/iridescentphantasmagoria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Reaper generally divided people into four categories of dislike: normal people he ignored like others ignore flies, and swatted at them when they became an annoyance. Overwatch agents and everyone associated were a special thorn in his side, and he squashed them with great delight (or something akin to it) as often as he could; for a man of his skill, that meant most days. Then there were the people who, in one way or another, helped him accomplish his objective, and whom he did not outright dislike. The last category was the one he did not like to think about, reserved for the few that got him so angry that his mouth would start to taste like iron and salt, blood boiling hot and scraping under his skin. Those were mostly people he had a history with, a history that he would end for them. Those were the ones he hunted.</p><p>And then he met the man with the jacket.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Once Upon A Time

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first time writing/posting and  
> I'm sorry for this mess but have fun reading.

Reaper generally divided people into four categories of dislike: normal people he ignored like others ignore flies, and swatted at them when they became an annoyance. Overwatch agents and everyone associated were a special thorn in his side, and he squashed them with great delight (or something akin to it) as often as he could; for a man of his skill, that meant most days. Then there were the people who, in one way or another, helped him accomplish his objective, and whom he did not outright dislike. The last category was the one he did not like to think about, reserved for the few that got him so angry that his mouth would start to taste like iron and salt, blood boiling hot and scraping under his skin. Those were mostly people he had a history with, a history that he would end for them. Those were the ones he hunted.

It should have been just another far too hot day of killing people and breathing the dust they kicked up. Overwatch cannon fodder was usually barely a category 2: annoying… but killing them would make his day slightly better. And yet, currently, Reaper was ducked behind a car, waiting for the extremely well-aimed shots of some aggravatingly good cannon fodder to cease. He growled, left calf burning where an unexpected bullet had grazed it; At least his black gear hid all signs of blood. _This is bullshit. Roasting in the sun, hiding from some no one because he can actually fucking hit me,_ he thought, more frustrated and upset than the soldier’s better-than-normal tech and actually-good-for-something aim could justify.  
The gunfire stopped, echoing silence. Reaper could clearly see the guy from his hiding spot, standing behind some shipping crates at the corner of an alleyway. Face hidden behind a visor, his stance still betrayed him as prepared and alert despite displaying a level of unguardedness that was meant to draw his foe out. Reaper snickered, surprising himself. _This guy is definitively not cannon fodder_ , he thought, _even if he hasn’t shown any of the flashy shit the members of Overwatch liked to antagonize the battlefield with_. Who knew what they were experimenting with these days, and now that was a thought he could understand to get irritated over. It wouldn’t actually matter, in the end, not against him; he was just waiting for that realization to sink in.  
Reaper kept watching the guy, waiting for him to do something. _Rushing in now will just let the fucker shoot me some more._ Minutes trickled by under the merciless sun before the guy just moved a bit farther into the alley, his colourful leather jacket gleaming in the sunlight before being cloaked in shadow.  
“Fuck this.” Reaper decided and Shadow Stepped the alley mouth in a bout of frustration. Jacket guy was farther in than he had expected, and managed to get one shot off before Reaper was close enough. It missed his target by a few hairs.  Reaper pushed further into the dark alley, went for the soldier’s mostly exposed head with his talons. Jacket Guy evaded, leather jacket creaking. Reapers leg shot forward to make him fall.  
“You’re as good as dead.”, he spat out, although Jacket guy sidestepped his leg and used the opening to slam his gun into Reaper’s mask. Metal collided with metal. It left his head ringing, but he grunted and used the force of the hit to send the man fly into the wall, giving himself a second to analyze the situation.  
The shadowed alley was cramped with crates, leaving barely any room for brawling and none for gunfights between wood and brick. _For all I care,_ Reaper thought, _Jacket Guy’s aim and tech will make no difference here, and the kill will be close and personal. I want to bury my fingers in his chest_. Maybe he had earned it, with the way Reaper was still reeling from aggravation. He had gotten a good, distracting view of the guy’s jacket when he crashed into the wall; it reminded him of something he did not remember. Something he did not care to remember. He clenched his fists, blood bubbling hot and scraping under his skin. Black smoke had started to rise from his skin, and he could feel his body becoming as unstable as his mind, yearning to dissolve.  
Jacket Guy grunted as he got up, useless gun still in hand. Reaper could feel his stare even if he couldn’t see it.  
“This is the time where you start begging for Mercy, “ he suggested, voice full of acid.  
“That doesn’t look healthy. You should get it looked into.” Jacket Guy’s voice sounded gravelly and mechanic through his mask, but still more human than Reaper’s. He was gesturing to Reaper’s hands, as if Reaper hadn’t realized that his extremities were _this_ close to losing grip on their true form. Then Jacket Guy charged him while Reaper was still progressing the unexpected turn of events.  
  
They nearly never managed to get hits on each other, even though Reaper landed more than Jacket Guy. More often, they would shove and push and kick each other into their surroundings, crashing crates and cracking walls. _He has to have been enhanced in some way, or he wouldn’t be able to keep up at all,_ Reaper guessed. He was surprised every time Jacket Guy stayed on his feet and didn’t even appear to feel the impact he left on walls and alike. Surprised enough to hold back a bit and study his opponent, anger pushed back by the adrenaline of the fight. Jacket Guy moved astonishingly fast and blocked increasingly more of Reaper’s attacks, although he kept underestimating the various ways Reaper could utilize his talons. His white hair was going bright red with blood from a few scratches, blood following the wrinkles across his forehead, and there was wetness seeping through his jacket from damage a fist couldn’t have done.  
The alley was concealed from the noise of the main battlefield, making their grunts and the noise of their hits seemed even louder. Reaper’s voice carried when he threatened: “Next, I’m gonna shred your fucking jacket, and then I’m gonna shred your skin.”  
“What? Can’t stand a few colours?” Jacket Guy replied casually, if slightly out of breath.  
“You’re just continuously getting more annoying.”, Reaper bit out. He started to press forward, focusing on getting hits and scratches in at the expense of getting hit himself. He hit and _thwack_ , Jacket Guy blocked, and then nearly turned into Reapers oncoming other fist. Over the next minutes, Jacket Guy was getting progressively more defensive. His breath came in harsh bouts, and this close, Reaper could see sweat and blood mingle on Jacket Guy’s forehead. _So this is his limit. No more annoying snips from him,_ Reaper thought, and satisfaction started creeping up his spine.  
“Time to put an end to this miserable business.”, he growled when his talons caught white hair and skin underneath, keeping a grip on it, and delighted at the pained whimper that escaped through his foes mask. It sounded so strangely human in spite of the mechanic voice.  
And then Jacket Guy faltered, finally. His elbow missed Reaper by a fair bit, and his legs had started to buckle – he was caught, and Reaper used his grip on him to lift him up against the wall.  
“I will rip your heart out while it’s still beating.”, he promised, and for a moment wished he could what Jacket Guy looked like when faced with the inevitable.  
And then, before his talons had even touched the fucking jacket, Jacket Guy twitched and Reaper had barely turned to a wisp of black smoke before a missile phased through him. _Reinforcements. Fucking hell_.  
He escaped up the wall and over a few roofs, an annoyingly familiar voice ringing in his ears, reminding Jacket Guy that he was “part of a team now, love, so use the bloody communicator.” And when he turned corporeal again in vicinity of his own team, his jaw was still smarting from where Jacket Guy had punched it when thought he could come in for the kill.

 

That would have usually been it. But Reaper had kept Jacket Guy at the back of his mind; he had been too unusual and his jacket to aggravating to just forget. It had a reason he didn’t remember, but it must have been something important or he wouldn’t get this hang up on it, he reasoned. So, a few countries and many kills later, Reaper was on a hunt through the city and looking for a place to lay low. He had started to recognize the street’s twists and turns, and thought _I might as well check if my access point is still there._ The dark and dusty rooms of the base had been used for mostly for storage, but had fallen in disuse during the early years of Overwatch – that was common knowledge in the organization, although Reaper had secretly started reusing the hidden room behind the ladies toilets towards Overwatch’s end. Even then, only a handful of people had known about it, and he was the only one who knew about the hidden communicator that was connected to the organization’s mainframe. Nothing with a high clearance, because that would be too noticeable, but enough to gleam basic information – for example, general chatter about what was going on, and Reaper knew his former teammates would discuss or at least refer to any new experiments going on. It would also give him access to the public data bases, where he might learn something – nothing he couldn’t do from any other communication device, but it would be far more satisfactory to use Overwatch tech against them. That was, if the thing was still there and hadn’t been disconnected during some maintenance or another, but Reaper was annoyed enough to try.  
The pad at the entry window wouldn’t take the one fingerprint he had left to try, so he manually unlocked it with the pin he had installed himself. His traps on the way down were all still intact, so it came as a bit of a surprise when he dropped into the dark main room and someone’s blueish missile hit his left hand dead on. He lost grip on his gun.  
Reaper growled a string of curses. _I haven’t had time to suck anyone dry tonight, I’ve got no energy for this bullshit. Best make it quick, then._  
He turned while falling, and gave of a few shots with the gun in his right hand upon landing. They missed, as he had expected. Whoever was here (and he an idea, because he had dodged this kind of blueish pulse fire before and uuurgh this felt like the sound nails made on a blackboard) was not hindered by the dark, and had used the noise of Reaper’s curses as a cover for moving.  
Reaper turned on his mask’s night vision; his gun’s light would only betray his position. His left hand burned in pulses and he unclenched it carefully. He wouldn’t be able to hold anything in it before he hadn’t gotten enough energy from someone to heal, but in a stroke of luck, there was someone here and no one to stop them.  
“You better start praying. I’m not in a good mood,” he goaded, but got no reply. Nothing in his vision moved. _No stupid comment…so maybe it’s not Jacket Guy._ Reaper felt kind of let down. _It would have been even nice to beat information out of him than just …someone.  
_ “So you’re too good for talking?” he asked, and ducked behind a corner, out of the way of the gunshots that were surely coming. The burning-hot flares hit him from behind instead, and Reaper asked himself: _Am I getting old?_ as he dropped to the floor and started to roll towards a tower of office cabinets before the pain could set in. A burning weight on his back stopped him – _Fuck! He’s fast._  
The soldier rammed his foot into Reaper’s back again when the latter twitched to get up.  
Through the rush of blood in his ears, he heard a familiar mechanic voice: “How did you know about that entrance?”  
_This doesn’t mean it’s him…mechanic voices are interchangeable,_ Reaper thought, but he was already well on his way to Hulk-levels of angry. His day had just been shit, but killing this guy might still save it. _Especially if it’s Jacket Guy._  
A gun clicked next to his head and Reaper snickered: “Are you trying to threaten me?”, and then rode out the wave of pain that came from a boot heel tap dancing on his back. _Fuck. The whole thing must be open.  
_ “Stop this and answer my question.” Reaper could see the soldier’s gun gesturing towards his hands from the corner of his eye.  
“What- “, he asked, stupefied, before he felt what his night googles did not show him. His fingers were dissolving, the biting pain covered by the burning in his back. Dissolving now would leave him vulnerable when he reformed, but the soldier did not need to know that.  
“What are you gonna do, shoot me?” For a moment, when there was movement behind his back, he nearly regretted being provocative. But instead of more pain, he was turned around and a hand gripped his collar.  
“I will do exactly that. We both know how well that has worked out for us so far, huh?” He looked like Jacket Guy. Same visor, same scars, and same fucking jacket, down to Reaper’s very own talon holes from their last meeting at the lower waist.  
“I knew the rat that had set up here would come back sooner or later”, he went on. Reaper grinned and went to scrape his right talons across Jacket Guy’s face. He halted with a growl when a knee landed on his mangled left hand.  
“Do you really think I’m stupid? Will you stop it?”, Jacket Guy took some pressure of his hand. _I would draw out his death, but I will kill him quickly if that gets him to shut up,_ Reaper vowed.  
“I will stop when your squirming under me, with no breath for-“, he was prepared for the knee this time, and the pain was worth Jacket Guy’s grunt as his knee hit Reaper’s locked, upwards facing talons. Wheezing, he added: “And then- I’ll- suck you-“, the ‘dry’ was lost when Jacket Guy cut of Reaper’s air supply with his arm.  
“The only one squirming here is you,” he said, but Reaper could hear the pain in his voice even through the mask’s alteration.  
“Now tell me. How did you know about this entrance?” Jacket Guy was nearly straddling him now, keeping his arm firm against Reapers throat and holding him down with his body weight. _Not taking any chances, is he…  
_ “I’ve used it often, amigo,” Reaper threw back as haughtily as he could. He wished he could spit in Jacket Guy face… _The disadvantages of a mask._  
His answer had apparently startled Jacket Guy, and Reaper used his silence to ask: “And now that we’ve established that, tell me who I’m about to kill?”  
He could feel Jacket Guy’s disapproving stare, like he was trespassing on an old guys front lawn or something.  
“Who’s doing the- Nevermind. An answer for an answer, huh? I’m-” He paused.  
“I’m just a soldier.” He twisted Reaper’s left hand painfully until the latter grunted with distress. “And if you want a straight answer, you’ll give me one yourself.”  
“I can promise you that I will scratch your eyes out,” Reaper guaranteed the orange visor in front of him, “But ask your fucking question.”  
“See? You don’t have to be difficult.” Jacket Guy’s voice got more serious again. “I guess you’ve got your way to get in here. But…why here?”  
“What does it look like? I need a place to rest and no one has used this shit-hole in a lifetime. I didn’t know that it’s become infested with cockroaches.”  
The minimal relaxation in Jacket Guy’s body told Reaper that he believed him, and, for some reason, was relieved. _So there’s something here that he doesn’t want me to know about…  
_ “My turn. Who are you? And keep to your fucking rules.”, Reaper growled, and then he could practically see Jacket Guy’s arrogant grin as he said: “As I said, I’m just a soldier-“  
“I will get the answer from you, and if that means I have to-“, Reaper started to threaten, but was interrupted by Jacket Guy _who was doing the disapproving elderly stare again_.  
“Young people, always so impatient. It’s like you haven watched the news. I _am_ just a fucking soldier, known as Soldier: 76.”  
Reaper suddenly remembered multiple things. Widowmaker complaining about someone who’d interrupted quite a few of her missions recently; Information he’d gotten from Talon about hits on Overwatch bases by a vigilante that was called Solider: 76, but he hadn’t cared since the victim was his favourite victim as well; and, long-forgotten, a sign on a door that marked a room belonging to soldier 76 and 77. He filed it away for later, especially the cold, heavy feeling accompanying the oldest memory, so opposed to the hotness in his blood and the burning pain that surrounded him. For now, he just breathed.  
Jacket Guy – or Solider: 76 interpreted his silence another way: “It’s true. It even says so on my jacket and all.”  
“What, you’re just a soldier and so normal they made you a jacket with your number?”, Reaper bit out, unbelieving. _It’s not true. I’ve seen the jacket before, even if I can’t recall where.  
_ Soldier: 76 startled, and Reaper only noticed because he had been watching for it. _So there’s more in this base and there’s more behind the jacket,_ he thought. At least his suffering was paying off, but by now Reaper was sure that he needed more time to pry as much information as possible from Soldier: 76.  
The latter had recovered.  
“It’s not your turn.” He punctuated it with pressing his arm against Reaper’s trachea more firmly again. Reaper grunted a threat in return, and let Soldier: 76 continue.  
“So…is your mug so ugly that you gotta wear a mask?” _What’s up with the silly question? Shit like this isn’t gonna get under my skin._  
“Takes one to know one, huh?” Reaper deadpanned. “My question. When did you join?” A careful enough query. It wouldn’t betray that he knew more about his name. Soldier: 76 had let slip that he was older, and his white hair and the few visible wrinkles on his forehead supported this. How quickly had they started reusing designations? Or were they trying to invoke old glory with an old name? But even then, they wouldn’t have taken number 76, but 77.  
“When I was 18. It feels like a far too long time ago.” Reaper could tell he’d touched on a sore subject; Soldier: 76’s arm lifted slightly from Reaper’s throat, and he appeared slightly distracted, thinking of another time. This wasn’t the information he had been hoping for, but good enough. _Not enough to try anything, but if I can keep going like this…_ Reaper would take free information as long as he could and get everything else later. People divulged more than they liked when they got emotional.  
“When did you join?”, the question came back. Soldier: 76 spoke quieter than before, more reluctant.  
“When I thought I could change something.”, Reaper answered, honestly.  
“That worked out well for you, did it know?”, Soldier: 76 asked strangely interested.  
“As you can see, I’m still changing things. I’ve just learned more about what needs to be changed, and where the change comes from.”  
“It’s interest-“  
“My turn.”  
Soldier: 76 shut up and Reaper felt his disapproving stare again. _Fucker’s buying time,_ Reaper realized. He’d thought Soldier: 76 careless and stupid when the cunt had simply used his little game to keep him in place. _He has reinforcements on their way. Again. Close enough that he’s not putting that much effort into distracting me anymore. Which means that he either doesn’t dare to kill me, or doesn’t want to._ This meant he couldn’t drag this out as long as he wanted to, and suddenly Reaper regretted that, for some reason, he had been honest. _One last question, and then I’ll go. Fucking shit._  
“Where did you get that jacket?”  
Soldier: 76 sighed.  
“I told you. It’s literally in my na-“  
“Cut the bullshit!”, Reaper growled and jerked, testing his back with the movement.   
“I’ve been fucking honest. Be honest yourself.” It had regenerated a bit, enough to stop the worst of the bleeding. He would need to run, hide, and feed, not necessarily in that order. _How aggravating._ He could already feel the tingling, biting pain under his skin, ready to dissolve him.  
Soldier: 76 countered: “It was a present, okay?” And yeah, Reaper could believe that a bit more, except…  
”This jacket has been missing for years.  Why would _you_ -“ slipped from his lips, enraged, but that he knew this it revealed a bit too much, and then there was noise from the entrance, only a click, but Soldier: 76 pressed his arm down more firmly again and asked: “So what do you wanna to until my team gets here?” and that was the moment Reaper dissolved.  
It hurt more than ever. He tried not to let himself get this hurt, weak, energyless, because he could feel every cell screaming as they split apart. Reaper hardly registered Soldier: 76 surprised shout, barely managing to hold onto his ghostly form, and shot straight up to the ceiling, out the way he came. Yelling followed him (“Tracer! He’s going out the top!” – “Got you covered, Dad!” – “Le- Tracer!”) but even enhanced eyesight and whatever tech couldn’t follow his disappearance into the black night quickly enough. He made sure to kill someone whose screams wouldn’t be heard to easily near the base, and then he found a hole to crawl into.


	2. A Few Mistakes Ago

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The jacket. He didn’t remember, but then again, he had done his best to never remember the Before. There were flashes (a familiar voice: “-for you, so you don’t forget-“) but joke’s on him, Reaper thought, I still managed to forget enough. 
> 
> What followed were a few mistakes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should have gone to sleep a few hours ago. RIP tomorrow-me.
> 
> Also, thanks for the nice words and the kudos!

By the time the city was out of lockdown, Reaper had long since fully regenerated. He’d sat the lockdown out in a small (freshly made vacant) apartment covered in cat hair, thinking about what he knew, and scheming.  
_Fucking Soldier: 76_. About a year ago, there had been hits on a few selected organizations and many former Overwatch bases. A lot of tech had gone missing; there had been no casualties. Reaper had ignored it, because attacks on Overwatch were great, in his books. Now that he paid attention to the information he had…these hits were attributed to a vigilante called ‘Soldier: 76’, and Reaper wanted to brutally murder whoever came up with that name. It was just too specific to be a coincidence, coupled with the jacket and the enhancements and shit.  
The jacket. He didn’t quite remember, but then again, he had done his best to never remember the Before. There were flashes (a familiar voice: “-for you, so you don’t forget-“) _but joke’s on him_ , Reaper thought _, I still managed to forget enough._  
And the fucking enhancements. Some part of him had assumed (hoped) that they’d stopped the program after seeing what became of their super soldiers. But the ‘new’ Overwatch wasn’t affiliated with the military anymore, and Reaper had seen (and repeatedly tried to kill) a certain associated, experiment-happy scientist. _This might as well be both her work and her idea,_ he realized. Angela – or Mercy, as she called herself these days, and wasn’t that first-grade irony right there – had known about- he stopped that train of thought. There were many reasons for her to do this, and she had everything she needed to do it well. To imitate-  
_I need more information_ , Reaper thought, _and then I need to bury my fingers in those people’s innards and my ghosts with them._

Therefore, when the military had stopped looking at the city through crosshairs and Reaper had gone up the walls (but he had neither patience nor time to start another chapter of an international manhunt with him as the prey), he left to seek out an not-enemy of his – someone who would happily give him work (mostly involving killing and his other talents) and pay him in information. Furthermore, they clashed with Overwatch as often as waves hit the shore, by the nature of their business. _Which means many chances to bash a few of those arrogant heads in. Or shoot them, but hitting them would be more satisfying._

Maybe that assumption had been his first mistake.

Talon cooperated with him, more happily than expected. They did fight  Overwatch quite often – among other do-gooders and rival organizations -, but they got their heads bashed as often as they bashed heads, and Reaper hat yet to bash in any important heads permanently. _Although it’s still nice to hear them cry in pain, for now. And in time…_ he mused, thoughts spiraling through the darkness in his head.

And then, a few weeks down the line:  
“You weren’t quite holding up against Overwatch without me, what?” he asked Widowmaker when they were rushing to help their team in some-or-another ambush they had gotten into, moon glinting of her recon visor.  
“Right now is _not_ the time to talk,” she answered, and that was as good as a yes, and then Reaper was distracted with dodging blueish missiles, and a jacket that reminded him of oh-so-familiar laughter.  
So Reaper looked around Talons mission-databases after they had gotten back from sending the Overwatch agents scurrying off into the dark.  
_I was right,_ he thought, _they’ve been quite …unsuccessful for a few months. How indescribably unsurprising the dip in their success rate correlates with since when Soldier: 76 has been spotted with Overwatch. Great._ Having most of his targets in one place (or organization) made his life less annoying, and it meant Talon would do their best to keep him happy.  
  
And then he’d finally gotten a nice packet of information as payment from Talon: lists full of long, chemical names, drugs, medical equipment, dietary supplements, all – with a lot of background knowledge – traceable to one Dr. Angela Ziegler. Reaper knew mostly everything on the list, from a contract heatedly discussed till the sun rose and learned by the letter before he had signed it. It had been titled _Soldier Enhancement Program [Classified]_.  
The data pad fell through his fingers as they vanished in black smoke, pain spreading through his body like the experimental drugs had, so many years ago. A lifetime ago.  
_So I was right,_ he thought, before the roaring took over and-

  
“So you’re my roommate. Nice to meet you!”  
A too-young voice followed by the muted _thwack-thwack-thwack_ of someone wearing heavy boots entering the room. Reaper couldn’t see his face. Reaper couldn’t _stand_ to see his face.

  
_\- I wish she could feel this. I will_ make _her feel this._ There was no end in sight, only a target.

A different mission. Overwatch was stealing…something, from some factory in France, when the sun was just thinking about rising through the thick, overly moist fog. Reapers team had one goal:  to hinder Overwatch and destroy whatever they were trying to take – or take it for Talon. Also, to kill and maim as many of them as possible, but that was normal.  
They had been quite successful (so far); currently, the annoying Junk-something was finishing off by detonating the building, Widow was ahead withdrawing with the mission objective, Reaper and Roadhog covering her exit.  
They hadn’t seen Tracer since Widowmaker had taken the hard drive they had been recovering from her body, half-buried under brick and mortar, knocked out from trying to evade the sniper’s shot by teleportin into a wall. Shortly after, they had buried the pink mech accompanying her under what had been left of the top floor, which was soon followed by an explosion that signaled the machine’s complete destruction.  
And Mercy… Reaper had personally seen to disabling Mercy early on, buried his talons in the muscles of her leg and started ripping off her armor piece by piece, bloodlust fueled by the burning under his skin. The scraping and boiling had drooled over the prospect of gorging itself on its creator, until he’d finally lost enough control for his body to become too intangible to hold onto his victim. She’d taken off then, but those had been a good couple of minutes and worth the pain he was in now. He’d even kept a few choice pieces of her Valkyrie Suit, so she wouldn’t be of any use anytime soon. _The danger of being known by your enemy,_ he thought, and grinned like others would sharpen a knife. They had been crushing Overwatch remorselessly, a long-awaited full-scale victory.

So Reaper had had no second thoughts when he saw something blue-black, something _familiar_ flash in the corner of his eye. And his first thought had been: _And you I’ll get, too, fucking motherfucker,_ underlined by some really intense loathing.  
Retrospectively, that had been another mistake.  
  
Reaper vanished into the shadows on his next step, and appeared soundlessly some distance behind Soldier: 76, who was running parallel to their exit route. _I wonder how much noise he’ll make,_ Reaper thought, pulling out his shotguns, the excitement of the hunt like a storm in his veins. And then – _I don’t want anyone to disturb me._  
He aimed and shot. Soldier: 76 stumbled when his foot was pierced by the projectiles, and skidded to a halt behind the nearest outcropping. Reaper could see how the soldier was weighting his options through his careful, probing test of his leg. Blood coloured the dust under Soldier: 76.  
It was simple: He could lose Widowmaker and the hard drive and fight, or keep going and lose his life because there was an infamous killer behind him. _Not that fighting me will change the outcome._  
Reaper couldn’t decide if he’d rather chase Soldier: 76 some more, preferably away from the others who might want to kill him more quickly and/or would disturb Reaper making him regret existing, or fight him head on and see him slowly give up when he’d thought he had a chance.   
“I’ve been waiting to see you again.”, Reaper growled as a greeting.  
“And I could have gone without you. Shooting unsuspecting people in the heel…that’s not a nice way to say heel-o.”, Soldier: 76 answered casually, if slightly pained.  
And yeah, Reaper decided would rather like to bash his face in now than later, but there was a quick decision in the tension in Soldier: 76’s body, and he sprinted off between the high walls.  
“You fucking slimy bitch!”, Reaper howled, a nightmare being mocked like he was a simple wolf. He pursued.  
Soldier: 76 was faster than him. He sprinted and kept on sprinting, not once slowing down, and Reaper was having a hard time keeping up. Thankfully he was very much not above shooting people who had their back turned to him.  
He emptied both shotguns trying to disable Soldier: 76 as well as keep him from running towards the others, but hardly hit because _the fucking asshole is just too fast, what did Angela do to him?_ and he was running evasive patterns.  
The seething-white pain in his limbs was urging him to dissolve, to Shadow Step, anything, but it wasn’t the right moment. Not yet. He’d need to, he needed to- _Dissolve, dissolve, dissolve,_ his steps echoed. Reaper pulled out a fresh set of shotguns, focused on gripping them, and then he turned the corner and saw-  
  
hands holding sides, pressed to the jacket, bubbling with laughter that he couldn’t contain  
  
\- except there was only harsh breathing and then blood dripping between through the jacket, through the fingers, slowly dripping to the floor. This felt familiar, too, but it was worse.  
“Why are you so insistent on following me?”, Soldier: 76 demanded, as if he had any right to ask questions.  
“Shut up!” Reaper snarled before he’d thought about it. He needed a moment. He needed to separate the two pictures, because both were making him angry but one also made him sick.  
_They faked the jacket really well,_ he thought, disconnected. No wonder it was throwing him off so much.  
“You don’t like it when I talk, huh?”, Soldier: 76 challenged. “Do you really think that’ll make me stop?” He had his gun aimed at Reaper, finally standing his ground, and there was some sort of field set up around him – the air around him shimmered golden, and then Reaper saw him straighten slightly. _Triple-damned healing field, probably,_ he rationalized while dropping under a hail of bullets aiming for his well-guarded face like an insult. _This is why we hadn’t seen him today – he must have been picking up after his comrades…_  
He tapped his communicator thrice, signaling _Danger_ to his team, and then he gave up and let the pain embrace him.  
More of Soldier: 76’s shots rang through the early morning as Reaper advanced, slowly, surely. The bullets passed through the black smoke that was his body, not impeding him the slightest. Soldier: 76 still stood, straight and brave and whatnot, but he stopped wasting his bullets. His body was a single line of tension, threatening to rip itself to shreds.  
_This is it. This is when he realizes there’s nothing he can do._ Reaper delighted in the moment. The longer Soldier: 76 took to fully succumb to despair, the sweeter it would be when he did.  
And then he was upon him, materializing at Soldier: 76’s back, an arm around his throat. They both grunted as Soldier: 76 lost his balance and toppled to the floor, Reaper on top of him.  
“Now you can talk all you want.”, Reaper whispered in the soldier’s ear, and went to work.  
  
This was, again, a mistake.

Reaper had gotten out the tether he’d taken from Mercy’s suit so he could bind Soldier: 76’s arms, because he’d learned from their previous encounters. He’d also been desperately eager to release his pent-up anger, nearly delirious with it, and still slightly dizzied from taking on his wraith form just before, mistakenly assuming the rigidity left in Soldier: 76 was but a display of fear, not fight. He had taken a moment (or two) to rake his talons down the soldier’s, slowly cutting through his armor until he reached flesh, finally, finally!  
The soldier bucked. In a (pained) breath, he ripped his left arm free, imbalanced Reaper, and they went sprawling on the floor. Reaper _had_ wound the tether on Soldier: 76’s right arm, and kept a tight hold on it, and jerked him back- and the soldier went with it, used the force to press Reaper downward.  
“I will make you regret you’re very existence.”, the Soldier: 76 choked, trying to retake control of his right arm while keeping Reaper down.  
“Hah! I already do.”, came the snarled reply.  
“Apparently not enough.”, the soldier shot back.  
Reaper went to pierce or scratch anything with his talons, but he either couldn’t reach or build up enough force with his opponent’s body this close. His talons glided over the jacket’s surface uselessly, soft skin out of reach. Soldier: 76 must have noticed, because he pressed even closer and snarled:  
“I’ll get you for all you’ve done.”  
Reaper used his opponent’s lessened position to turn them around, and Soldier: 76 used the momentum to let Reaper’s head kiss the floor…with force. The floor activated the left release of his mask, and it loosened, shifting the visual field away from Reaper’s eyes. Reaper jerked up and rammed his head into Soldier: 76’s, whose visor gave a satisfying _crack_. _An eye for an eye,_ shot through Reaper’s head. Then Soldier: 76 head-butted him right back, and Reaper couldn’t see shit anymore. He also hadn’t heard the visor crack again.  
_Fuck._  
He wound the free end of the tether tight around his left arm, leaving both of them with one mobile hand. Except Soldier: 76 had grabbed his wrist, holding the sharp talons securely away from him. There was no noise except their harsh, mask-modified breathing, and the sound of leather gear grinding against each other where they struggled frantically.  
_This isn’t going anywhere,_ Reaper thought, frustrated. They were too evenly matched, although he wouldn’t admit it out loud, and too often using their moves against each other.  He’d thought himself so close to having a nice day and eviscerating this clown. This fake, this abomination created by an even worse creature. _If I can slip his grip-_ HHHis fingers were bleeding pain at the edges, bleeding into nothingness, but Soldier: 76 just gripped him tighter, and-

  
a grin. “We’re too evenly matched, admit-“

  
-“What the fuck are you, even?”, Reaper yelled and surged up, surprising the soldier who let go of his wrist to get his balance back, and Reaper’s talons found purchase on the jacket and-  


“-for you, so you don’t forget your number when you have to use your name again, Gabe-“ a present

  
_-_ Soldier: 76 turned away from the talons, overbalancing, jerking Reaper with him where their arms were bound together, and Reaper couldn’t see, he couldn’t see-

  
but he could feel blood on his hands, soaking his gloves, and all over the body in front of him, _where is_ -

  
-couldn’t see where Soldier: 76 other arm was. He did feel it when its fist connected to Reaper’s right temple. It activated the right release of his mask, which went flying, and his face took the brunt of the hit. It was bright, suddenly.  
Soldier: 76 swam into focus, under him, cuts and blood all over, but Reaper didn’t see him, still caught in another, darker room, with more blood.  
He couldn’t do anything but breathe and try to forget. Soldier: 76 breathed with him.  
After – had it been minutes? – a hand reached for his face. Reaper jerked aware, and then away as far as he could. All anger had left him, and in its place was a heavy feeling, calmer than anything he’d felt in a long time. It was dragging him down to the ocean floor, deep beneath the cold, stormy sea, drowning him. Was he breathing?  
He heard Soldier: 76 suck in a breath, startled, shocked.  
Reaper knew what he looked like – hollow, fallen face, the brown of his skin mottled with sickly grey patches that oozed ashen smoke, like constant acid on his skin. It looked better than it felt.  
“This is what she’s made me. You can find a similar end at her hands.”, Reaper growled into the silence around them. His voice sounded unnatural to himself, too human. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been without mask.  
The soldier’s hand had frozen on its way to his face.  
“She?”, he asked, weirdly soft but confused, hand still in the air, and Reaper was so fucking tired of it all.  
“Yes, she. I know who you are, and you know who I mean.” _The great mind behind all this._ It didn’t need to be said.  
“You know-… Why didn’t you- Ga-“, Soldier: 76 sputtered, gasping for air and words.  
He didn’t get to finish. His opportunity was lost as Widowmaker crashed through a door, Tracer upon her. They stopped dead when they saw Reaper and Soldier: 76 on the floor, for a second maybe, and then Widowmaker was the first to collect herself. She used the opportunity to escape Tracer’s grasp, pulling higher up with her grappling hook. And then Tracer moved-  
“Jack! Are you alright?”  
Reaper was drowning, breathless, but that name was like an electric shock, and his body was alive with the current.  
“How can _you_ call this abomination by _his_ name, when you knew Jack Morrison?”, he demanded, and they all turned to him. He could feel Soldier: 76 – the fake, the monster – tense next to him, felt a hand on his arm. He shook it off, shakily unwound the tether and got up. No one moved. It was silent except for his loud breathing. Reaper looked at his former comrade, looked her in the eyes as if they held the answer.  
“How can you accept him, Tracer?”  
Tracer bristled, predictably, always emotional. And he did see an answer in her eyes: She _believed_ , she was utterly convinced of the lie. Something was moving through Reaper’s body, something cold.  
“He’s the one and only, you bloody cunt.”, she said.  
And there was the calm again, but this time, it was ice in his veins, and a clarity he hadn’t felt since Switzerland. There was a fact he lived by.  
“Jack Morrison is dead. I killed him with my own hands.”


	3. I was in your sights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He’s looking for me. I don’t have to come to him, he’ll walk right to me and anything I might set up. This made everything a whole lot easier than trying to murder information out of one Overwatch agent or another. How ironic that Soldier: 76 appeared to be trying the same strategy, just with less death.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the kind words and kudos!
> 
> I'm sorry for any missing spaces, I got a newer version of word and it appears to have taken a few as sacrifices. At least its working now.  
> I've you spy any though, I'd be glad to know where!
> 
> Oh. Also. My inspiration for this whole thing was 'I knew you were trouble' hence the chapter titles...
> 
> Edit 08.09.:  
> Apparently either word or ao3 ate some paragraphs and breaks and all the cursive. fixed it.

Jack Morrison had always been meant to be his end. Reaper had known when he pushed his fingers into the warm cavity that was Jack’s chest, or maybe when they got into another argument so intense it felt physical even before they got their hands on each other, or when Jack shot him a grin like he shot others bullets, during one of those breathless moments when they didn’t know if they’d survive the next days or hours or minutes but everything was _right_. Maybe a small part of him had known from the moment he’d seen Jack for the first time, walking into their shared quarters, their numbers right next to each other on the door. He’d never meant to outlive him. He’d never been meant to outlive him. Reaper certainly wouldn’t have - if it had been _his_ choice.  
When he’d felt his fingers in Morrison’s chest, barely visible under the emergency lights, he had known with absolute inevitability that he wasn’t leaving the place alive. It had been a moment like broken glass, clear and cutting. He’d felt every pulse when he’d pushed his fingers around Morrison’s heart, aware of bone and muscle and tissue giving in, aware of every shuddering groan and with complete awareness that he was killing the most important person in his life. There had been two facts: Jack Morrison was dying by his hands and Gabe was dying with him.

Then he’d woken up again, slipped in and out of consciousness and pain. Someone hadn’t let him be dead. They’d found him and given him their sick, twisted version of new life. Then Reaper had given himself his very own sick, twisted version of a new purpose. Now they’d created this sick, twisted version of Jack Morrison and they’d done an _extraordinary_ job. But Reaper had _felt_ Morrison’s heart stop in his hand, and it was the last thing he remembered before his body and mind succumbed to the damage Morrison had wrecked upon it with his gun and knife and fists and words and _betrayal_. All that had been before the building and half the mountain came down on them. Their bodies had been buried for days.

  
Here, in this small French town and years later, in a different life, no one knew.Tracer didn’t know, and naïve as she was ( _fiery and loyal_ , a dead voice echoed) she’d taken to this fake-Morrison - who had survived, which she had very loudly and indignantly declared. And anyway who was Reaper to assume _he_ had killed Jack Morrison?  
Widowmaker had pulled them out of the room just before something pink and shiny could bulldoze them over, ending the exchange. They had withdrawn – with the hard drive, because Tracer had been too distracted by defending fake-Morrison’s honor to grab it back.  
Reaper saw the hard drive and his team mates delivered. He vanished before they could asked questions about why he was still choking on air, stepping into shadow after shadow until he felt sick. He couldn't stop. The gaping dark was threatening to absorb him forever, vertigo twisting him apart, but he wasn’t far enough yet.  
Not far enough from Soldier: 76 who _dared_ to wear his jacket and his name-  
Reaper stumbled from the shadow that had released him back into the real world.  
Soldier: 76. A problem Reaper spent too much time thinking about and not enough solving. He could feel the comfortingly normal hotness in his blood crawling under his skin, but his chest was a hole like the shadows he’d come from, and dreadfully cold. He instinctively looked down, but his body was still intact in the harsh street light’s shine. As intact as it could be, anyway.  
Reaper’s armor felt sticky with blood he hadn’t cleaned off.  
_Whose blood?_ , he wondered, distantly. _Probably his, too.We’ve spilled blood on each other too many times._ He remembered that it wasn’t the real Morrison he’d fought with, not in this lifetime.  
_I don’t want to think about him, I want to-_ Reaper had a lot of rather graphic ideas on what to do to Soldier: 76 once he got him alone. _I want him gone. I want to forget again._  
Reaper stepped back into welcoming dark.

  
His Talon-issued communicator interrupted him some time later. Reaper wasn’t sure how many days had gone by since France, passed in a blur of shadows and blood, snatching and killing agents that didn’t _know anything, I swear, please stop, please_. He couldn’t make out the stains on his chest armor anymore, covered by so many more.  
Reaper checked his communicator. A message blinked back at him.

  
Subject: Payment  
Attachments: R_sol.icx, reidcol.htd  
  
Works for us. –W

The first attachment consisted of encrypted reports from Talon agents, mostly concerning Overwatch’s recently noticeable strain on their teamwork. One report noted a strategic benefit in attacking certain members of the former Overwatch when they were teamed up with Andrea ‘Mercy’ Ziegler, as they appeared to be in continuous disagreement.

Reaper nearly snorted at that, a pinch of strangely sickening glee worming its way through his body. _Cat’s out of the bag, huh, Mercy._  
Someone had highlighted the last few sentences: _Soldier: 76, known for his positive effect on the team, has not been seen since Retrieval Mission RMFRA3829, where he was likely not hurt life-threateningly. His current whereabouts are unknown._  
The second file was a list of Talon and associated agents that had been attacked out of direct combat since the mission in France. A surprising number had simply been kidnapped, only to appear in high security cells days later, bloodied but alive. Reaper remembered the string of attacks on a few selected organizations and many former Overwatch bases from months ago, attributed to the vigilante Soldier: 76. Without any casualties, just like Morrison would have done it.  
_Just like the agents that Soldier: 76 is abducting this time. I wonder how Angela managed to make him be like this. How did he fool even Tracer?_ It probably involved a lot of brainwashing.  
It was working against the scientist now, if her soldier was so in character that he had abandoned her, apparently looking for Reaper.  
The overall message was simple: Talon wanted to keep their agents, so they wanted him to keep Soldier: 76 busy and the team unstable. Reaper didn’t really care, he just wanted Soldier: 76.  
_He’s looking for me. I don’t have to come to him, he’ll walk right to me and anything I might set up._ This made everything a whole lot easier than trying to murder information out of one Overwatch agent or another. How ironic that Soldier: 76 appeared to be trying the same strategy, just with less death.  
Reaper picked up the communicator and send a message to all Talon agents – something that would put him out of favor as much as keeping Soldier: 76 busy had put him in favor – before destroying the device.  
The message read:  
  
Subject: Bring your jacket  
  
Let’s trade answers. Second time.

Because while Reaper was desperate to forget, and he was equally desperate for answers, Soldier: 76’s mere existence like a chasm in his head.

He moved quickly. Reaper didn’t know how soon Soldier: 76 would kidnap his next victim – and find the message – but he wanted to be ready by then. He drained the next person he found and then set up in the hidden room in the base where he’d met Soldier: 76 the second time.‘Set up’ meant he checked on the room and the traps – all undisturbed – and put a few more things in place. There was enough space, since Overwatch had apparently cleaned the base mostly out after Reaper and Soldier: 76 had been here last time.  
_Looking for clues, maybe? They didn’t even change shit about the traps. Maybe because- ah, no. They took whatever important thing Soldier: 76 didn’t want me to know about._

  
When the front door ( _the front door, really, Soldier: 76?_ ) opened only a few hours later, Reaper was waiting, keeping down whatever was clawing around his chest. _Something’s wrong_ , he thought. _He’s too confident, he’s acting like he knows what will happen._ Reaper felt the hot-cold of adrenaline wash over him at the mere thought of the _possibility_ that this was-  
“You found me.”, he said, as Soldier: 76 crossed into the main room. They had met exactly here, last time, when Reaper had jumped from the ceiling.  
The soldier didn’t react. He stopped in front of Reaper with space for two dead bodies between them, pulse rifle loose in one hand and overconfidence or stupidity in his shoulders.  
He just looked at the Reaper, and Reaper found himself looking back. In front of him was someone built like Jack Morrison who moved and talked and acted like Jack Morrison as well, wearing a jacket that Jack had worn often, in a different age. Seeing him was like drowning when he’d thought he could finally breathe again.  
Reaper blinked. He couldn’t tell if the soldier wore Jack’s face as well; his visor was fixed and in place. _I wouldn’t put it past Angela…_ Soldier: 76 interrupted his thoughts.  
“Just to be clear: I’ve got you in my sights.”,he said, and motioned to his visor with his free hand.  
“Don’t try anything funny.”  
“Does this work on your kids?”, Reaper asked, after a pause. “I mean, your team. Like, the disapproving stare you’re doing right now and everything?”  
Soldier: 76 just glared at him.  
“As you can see, “ Reaper continued and held up his hands, “I’ve even put my guns away. Good faith and so on.”His tone promised sharp talons.  
Soldier: 76 pressed somewhere on his mask, sliding the bottom part off, and spoke with the voice of someone who was dead.  
“I know you’ve got at least another dozen stuffed up your coat, Gabe.”  
The cold and clear froze Reaper. _I should attack. I should have attacked the moment he entered the building_ , he thought distantly. _He sounds too much like-_  
He was partially aware of Soldier: 76 stepping closer, hand raised towards Reaper. A hand raised for what?  
“Gabe.”, Jack’s voice repeated, like a nightmare that pretended to be a dream so it could dig its claws even deeper.  
It was too much. The hole in Reaper’s chest was too big, and it ached at the voice, swallowing any heat that could have kept him going, and it was _too much-_  
Reaper rushed Jack-  
Reaper rushed Soldier: 76, had him against the wall in the blink of an eye, right hand fisted in his collar.  
“Stop saying that name.”, Reaper snarled, breathing harshly. “He died with Jack Morrison.”  
Soldier: 76 opened his mouth and Reaper muffled whatever he was going to say with his other hand, quickly clasped over the soldier’s mouth. His talons scraped over Soldier: 76’s visor. Reaper knew he had had a plan, but it was a memory as distant as Jack. Soldier: 76 still didn’t put up a fight, which should have made it easy so easy but it just made it impossible.  
Reaper breathed; he couldn’t _think_.  
The body under him relaxed, and the pulse rifle clattered on the floor when Soldier: 76 dropped it. For a few moments, neither of them moved, until suddenly, it wasn’t _enough_ -  
“I’ll kill you. I, I will.”, Reaper snapped, but there was no force behind it, just a quiet promise to the hole in his chest. He’d forgotten to blink, and now his eyes burned from watching the man in front of him. Soldier: 76 mumbled something into Reaper’s hand, who stared back at him, unmoving. Sighing, the soldier put his hand over Reaper’s on his collar. When he pulled on the assassin’s hand, Reaper continued staring, still balancing out the pull of the hole in his chest.  
“What.”  
Soldier: 76 mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like ‘move or I’ll bite you’, not that Reaper wasn’t wearing thick leather gloves. But…he didn’t resist when Soldier: 76 pulled his hand downwards this time. The soldier stopped their hands on his heart like a poisoned gift, and pulled Reapers other hand from his mouth.  
“Do it.”, he whispered, intently, a threat. Reaper fell into the hole, back to Switzerland-

his hand was on Jack’s chest, and his talons were piercing through his shirt. He didn’t think about it, fingers moving on their own. Jack grunted, his knife searching for Gabriel’s heart under his ribs. But Gabriel had stopped feeling anything long ago.  
The building shook around them, dust floating to the ground. Something exploded, but Gabriel could only see Jack’s face while his talons slowly pushed closer to Jack’s heart. He was distantly aware of his own body giving up, of noise from their discarded communicators. Someone was yelling, but he only heard Jack gasp his name, over and over. His eyes weren’t even surprised; they showed none of the betrayal Gabriel felt himself.

“Gabe. Gabe, listen to me-“ His name, over and over. His hand was on Jack’s chest, and his talons were fisted in his jacket. He couldn't-  
His breath came in quick, short bursts, not enough, not enough, it was so dark- there was pressure on the sides of his head, for a moment, and then, air.  
“Gabriel Reyes. Open your eyes.” A command. Gabriel’s eyes flew open. He wasn’t in Switzerland anymore. He wasn’t Gabriel anymore. Reaper blinked a few times, and Soldier: 76’s visor swam into view.  
“Breathe.” Reaper did as he was told.  
“You’re not going to kill me.”, Soldier: 76 affirmed when Reaper’s breathed had calmed down.  
“I will.“, Reaper hissed, but it was pathetic even to his own ears. “This is your weakness, not mine, Morrison! I finish what I start, no one get’s back-“  
“Oh, but I have, haven’t I?”, Soldier: 76 interrupted him. He took of his visor.  
“And you know. You know it’s me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a bit stuck. But. I'm working on it, mostly by lying on the floor and angrily texting my friends weird questions while my notebook stays blank except for weird doodles and scratched-out sentences.


End file.
